Synopses & Reviews
Almost every anti-colonial struggle this century has been led by an army of guerrillas. No such struggle has succeeded without a very high degree of cooperation between guerrillas and the local peasantry. But what does cooperation between peasants and guerrillas really consist of? What effect does it have on the way they view the world for which they fight?
In the struggle for Zimbabwe (1966-80), hundreds of thousands of peasants provided the guerrillas with practical help and support. But they went a good deal further. Throughout the country scores of spirit mediums, the religious leaders of Shona, gave active support to resistance. With their participation, the scale of the war expanded into an astonishing act of collaboration between ancestors and their descendants, the past and the present, the living and the dead.
This book is a detailed study of one key operational zone in the Zambezi valley. It shows that to understand the meaning the war and independence have for the people of Zimbabwe themselves, we must take into account not only the nationalist guerrillas and politicians, the bearers of guns, but also the mediums of the spirits of the Shona royal ancestors, the bringers of rain.
Synopsis
Almost every anti-colonial struggle in the 20th century was led by an army of guerrillas, and no such struggle has succeeded without cooperation between the guerrillas and the local peasantry. This book examines what such 'cooperation' meant in the context of Zimbabwe's war of independence between 1966 and 1980 when hundreds of thousands of peasants provided the guerrillas with practical help and support. But throughout the country scores of spirit mediums also gave active support to the resistance, and with their help the scale of the war expanded into an astonishing act of collaboration between ancestors and their descendants, the past and the present, the living and the dead. North America: University of California Press
Synopsis
Lan shows that to understand the meaning that Zimbabwe's war of independence had for its people, the role of the spirit mediums must also be understood.